Posts Tagged ‘Texas’

Members of the Leviathan consortium, which includes Israel’s Delek group and the U.S.-based Noble Energy firm, signed a $10 billion contract on Monday to supply the Jordan Electric Power Company with natural gas for 15 years, beginning in 2019.

With the new agreement Israel will have become Jordan’s largest supplier of natural gas, providing the Hashemite Kingdom with approximately 45 billion cubic meters of the energy resource.

Israel’s Likud Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz called the deal “an extremely important national achievement,” according to Channel 10 television news. “This is an important milestone in strengthening the ties and strategic partnerships between Israel and Jordan and the entire region,” he emphasized.

Yossi Abu, CEO of Delek Drilling, was quoted by the Hebrew-language NRG news site as saying the deal “establishes the Leviathan oil field as a serious player on the energy map… It will contribute to the prosperity of [both] Israel and Jordan.”

Texan Senator Ted Cruz may have won a battle Wednesday night but it sure looks like he lost the war. He was pointedly turned away from billionaire Sheldon and Miriam Adelson’s suite at the Cleveland Arena Wednesday night after not endorsing Donald Trump in his speech on Day 3 at the Republican National Convention.

Cruz had stood his ground and plainly refused to endorse the party’s elected candidate to run for president of the United States.

He paid a price for his choice in the party, in media coverage, politically across the spectrum and financially as well.

When he later went to the on-site suite of Las Vegas Sands Casino chairman and his wife, each a billionaire in their own right — perhaps to explain himself more fully — he was pointedly turned away.

This was one that Cruz should have seen coming. The couple had told media in the spring they would back Trump.

All the candidates had, from the start, signed the same agreement: they would back the party’s nominee at the end of the process. Ultimately, Cruz balked, with personal ethics winning out over politics. Ironically Donald Trump respected his choice.

Sources in the Cruz campaign told CNN the former candidate “expected people to not approve” and was “not surprised at the reaction.” But his wife required a security escort to leave the arena — which he may not have anticipated. His own state party chairs were disgusted with what they called “selfish” behavior and some denounced him to his face on the floor. A Fox News team doing the post-analysis pointed out that he seemed to be “running for the next campaign, maybe for 2018,” calling him the “eternal presidential candidate” with a chuckle.

The speech started out strong enough, talking about Republican values, support for freedom, law and order, good education and healthcare — the very things backed by GOP presidential candidate Donald J. Trump. He even backed the now-infamous “wall” to block illegal migrants, and called on everyone to come out for the vote in November. He praised the “New York delegation.”

But Cruz appeared to take a left turn somewhere towards a description of his parents’ struggles, and the grieving daughter of one of the Dallas cops who was shot and killed by a U.S. Armed Forces veteran-turned-terrorist.

“We must make the most of our moments, to fight for freedom, to protect our God given rights, even if with those with whom we don’t agree, so that when we are old and gray, and when our work is done, and we give those we love one final kiss goodbye, we will be able to say freedom matters and I was part of something beautiful,” he said.

Bam.

The crowd booed, as Cruz said his final lines and left the stage.

Apparently none of this was a surprise to the Trump campaign, whose people knew when Cruz took the stage on Night 3 of the Republican National Convention that he would not endorse their nominee. He had already told them, and in fact Trump’s people had seen the text of his speech, and vetted it.

But as everyone pointed out after the night was over, it was in the interests of the party and the two candidates to show unity and largeness of spirit in allowing all the former contenders a chance to speak. That included Cruz, and his sour grapes.

Ancient mosaics depicting Noah’s ark and the parting of the Red Sea have been discovered by university scholars and students excavating a synagogue in Israel that dates to the fifth century.

They also have uncovered coins spanning 2,300 years, says Nathan Elkins, Ph.D., an assistant professor of art history in Baylor University’s College of Arts & Sciences, Waco, Texas. He specializes in the study of coins and serves as numismatist at the site in a former village called Huqoq.

“The ancient coins . . . are critical for our knowledge of the monumental synagogue and the associated village,” Elkins, a member of a team of staff and students from Baylor, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Brigham Young University and the University of Toronto.

The mosaics decorate the floor of a synagogue that dates to the time when the area was ruled by the Roman Empire and when Christianity had become the empire’s official religion. The mosaics show an ark and pairs of animals including elephants, leopards, donkeys, snakes, bears, lions, ostriches, camels, sheep and goats.

The images also portray Pharaoh’s soldiers being swallowed by large fish, surrounded by overturned chariots with horses and chariot drivers.

Donkeys in Noah’s ark mosaic, Huqoq. / Courtesy

Excavations have continued in the synagogue every summer since the first mosaics were found in 2012. Since then, mosaics depicting Samson and the foxes (as related in the Bible’s Judges 15:4), Samson carrying the gate of Gaza on his shoulders (Judges 16:3), and a scene containing a Hebrew inscription surrounded by human figures, animals and mythological creatures have been uncovered.

The first non-biblical mosaic found in an ancient synagogue also was discovered at Huqoq, showing the legendary meeting between Alexander the Great and the Jewish high priest.

The mosaics have been removed from the site for conservation, and the excavated areas have been backfilled. Financial support for the 2016 excavations was provided by the National Geographic Society and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture.

Excavations are scheduled to continue in the summer of 2017. For information and updates about the site and excavation, visit www.Huqoq.org.

Nathan Elkins, Ph.D. / Courtesy

In addition to working with the excavation, Elkins has advocated for protecting ancient coins from looting and smuggling. He recently spoke at the Public Hearing of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, DC He urged that the Memoranda of Understanding be renewed to prevent thefts of undocumented ancient coins and antiquities from Greece into the United States.

A 41-year-old man from Ra’anana suffered a heart attack on Saturday night. The man lost control of his car and drove it into the Furama sidewalk restaurant in Tel Aviv, according to police.

Three people were killed in the accident, several more were injured.

One of those killed was Alan Weinkratz, a Tech/PR/Social Media guru from San Antonio, Texas.

Weinkratz regular traveled back and forth between Israel and the US, promoting Israel, technology and advising Israeli startups.

Weinkratz, along with MK Michael Oren, met with JewishPress.com in December 2015, at Hub Etzion, a co-working startup space, where Weinkratz was offering advice to the local startups in the newly formed business hub, while learning more about the burgeoning startup community in Gush Etzion.

At the time Weinkratz presented Oren with his signature Rackspace poster that points an arrow at Israel as “The Five-Thousand Year Old Startup”.

Gen. David Goldfein, a command pilot who flew combat missions in the Gulf War, the Afghanistan War, and in NATO’s 1999 air war in the former Yugoslavia, has been nominated to be the US Air Force’s next chief of staff, the Pentagon announced Tuesday. Gen. Goldfein is Jewish. He is married to his high school sweetheart, Dawn A. Goldfein, since 1983. They have two married daughters; the oldest is serving in the USAF and the youngest teaches first grade in Dallas, Texas.

If approved, Goldfein will start his new commission on July 1. He has been the Air Force’s vice chief of staff since August 2015.

“I’m extremely humbled by the nomination to serve as the Air Force’s 21st chief of staff,” Goldfein said in an Air Force press release. “If confirmed, I pledge to serve our airmen and their families unwaveringly and honor our remarkable heritage and legacy of integrity, service and excellence.”

Gen. David Goldfein

Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James lauded Goldfein’s selection in the same release: “Gen. Goldfein possesses the experience and vision needed to address dynamic global challenges and increasing military demand. He knows how to build and sustain key partnerships, has important warfighting experience, and will exercise the critical judgment required to balance our manpower and resources as we shape tomorrow’s Air Force. There is not a better person to lead our airmen into the next century of airpower dominance.”

According to AirForce Times, Goldfein has more than 4,200 hours flying the C and D variants of the F-16 Fighting Falcon, the stealth F-117A Nighthawk and the unmanned MQ-9 Reaper, as well as the T-37, T-38 and MC-12W. While flying a combat mission over Serbia in 1999, Goldfein was shot down when his F-16 was hit by a surface-to-air-missile.

Goldfein ejected, and trekked across farm fields, evading enemy patrols, until he was picked up by a rescue helicopter, that then flew into enemy fire, taking five bullets in the fuselage.

In 2007, Goldfein told the El Paso Times that he sends the men who rescued him in Serbia a bottle of “single malt, good quality” Scotch every year as a sign of his gratitude.